Can the Wicked Succeed?
Psalm 1 is like a song of Tolkien's Bombadil, except it is the genuine article. It is a song of power which shapes the course of men and women in the world. It decrees and ordains divine blessing for the person who sets his heart upon the law of the Lord. This person will enjoy ever verdant fruitfulness of life. To use another Tolkien image, the righteous man blessed of the Lord dwells perpetually in Rivendell.
But the life course of the wicked could not be more different. They are like chaff which the wind dries away. Chaff is dry, dessicated, devoid of substance or life. It is without weight or significance. As the grain is tossed into the air, the feather-weight chaff drifts away.
In our post-Christian age the Lord's people can be fooled into assuming that this state of affairs will last—that it will be more-or-less permanent. But Psalm 1 tells us otherwise. The strength of the wicked is a chimera. It is a paper tiger. The strength and influence of the wicked will end up being of no more significance or substance than chaff which the wind drives away.
Rather, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. He establishes it. He approves it. He blesses it. But upon the wicked He turns His back and they perish.
The wicked neither believe nor pray, so the hand of God is not extended to them. The wicked are increasingly absorbed with themselves and their pleasures; they cannot build anything of lasting significance. The wicked are focused upon the immediate present; they are unable to sacrifice to build for the future. The wicked no longer believe in marriage and family. Children are rug rats and, at best, a lifestyle choice. The lines of the wicked are growing increasingly thin and tenuous. The wicked no longer care about laying up an inheritance for their children. It is all about present gratification. The wicked cannot build up capital; it will be consumed—always consumed upon their appetites. The wicked are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The wicked increasingly integrate into the void.
The righteous, however, go from strength to strength. Adversity simply becomes the drawing back of the catapault to forge them further ahead. Working with the creation and its divinely structured order—rather than against it—they are culturally powerful. The Lord God watches over them to make it so. The righteous are filled with days of life—powerful life.
But the doors and gates of the Great City are always open, and the righteous are always urging the wicked to leave the way of blight and rust and mould, and come—come, now!—for why would you stay in the paths which have been cursed by God's songs of power.
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